Honor

Honor or Honour, is an abstract concept of a perceived quality of virtues, worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self-evaluation of an individual or corporate body such as a family, school, regiment or nation. Accordingly, individuals (or corporate bodies) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions with a specific code of honour, and the moral code of the society at large. In Psychological nativism it is viewed as being as real to the human condition as love, and likewise deriving from the formative personal bonds that establish one's personal dignity and character; from stances ofhello relativism, it can be perceived as arising from universal concerns for material circumstance and status, rather than fundamental differences in principle between those who hold different honour codes. Samuel Johnson, defined honour as having several senses, the first of which was "nobility of soul, magnanimity, and a scorn of meanness."

"What is honor, and riches, and the favor of creatures - so long as I lack the favor of God, the pardon of my sins, a saving interest in Christ, and the hope of glory! O Lord, give me these, or I die! Give me these, or else I shall eternally die!"

I have never had to look up a definition of honor. I knew instinctively what it was. It is something I had the day I was born, and I never had to question where it came from or by what right it was mine. If I was stripped of my honor, I would choose death as certainly and unemotionally as I clean my shoes in the morning. Honor is the presence of God in man.

Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,
A mind serene for contemplation:
Title and profit I resign:
The post of honor shall be mine.

John Gay, Fables (1727), Part II. The Vulture, the Sparrow and other Birds.

True honour is an attachment to honest and beneficent principles, and a good reputation; and prompts a man to do good to others, and indeed to all men, at his own cost, pains, or peril. False honour is a pretence to this character, but does things that destroy it: And the abuse of honour is called honour, by those who from that good word borrow credit to act basely, rashly, or foolishly.

Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward. Whoever cannot take care of himself without that law is both. For a wounded man shall say to his assailant, "If I live, I will kill you. If I die, you are forgiven." Such is the rule of honor.

Horatio Nelson, Life of Nelson (ch. 9), when asked to cover the stars on his uniform to hide his rank during battle.

"Oh Lord! How many of these you surely have spilt over the world, who suffer for the black so-called honour what they would not suffer for you!" (Lázaro) [...] "I make you know that I am, as you see, a squire; but, by God!, if Ï meet the count on the street and he does not fully take off his hat before me, next time I will know to enter a house, simulating to have some business there, or cross to another street, if there is one, before he reaches me, so that I will not take off mine. That a hidalgo does not owe anything to anybody but God and the king, nor it is proper, being a good man, to lose a comma of care in regarding himself highly." (The Squire)

Yea, much more those that seem to be the more feeble members of the body, are more necessary. And such as we think to be the less honourable members of the body, about these we put more abundant honour; and those that are our uncomely parts, have more abundant comeliness. But our comely parts have no need [...]

Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?

Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off, when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no: Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is that word honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore, I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon; and so ends my catechism.

Anon. inscription on tombstone of Prussian General Johann Friedrich Adolf von der Marwitz, who received after the victory over Saxony an order by Frederick the Great to take and remove the famous library of Count Brühl to Berlin and who replied to his king: "This is unbefitting to an officer of His Majesty" and resigned his commission.

"I will to my lord be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns."

Madame, that you may know the state of the rest of my misfortune, there is nothing left to me but honor, and my life, which is saved.

Francis I, to his mother. Written in the Letter of safe conduct given to the Viceroy of Naples for the Commander Penalosa the morning after Pavia. See Aimé Champollion, Captivité de François I. Figeac, p. 129 (Ed. 1847). In Martin, Histoire de France, Volume VIII. Sismondi, Volume XVI, p. 241.

Your word is as good as the Bank, sir.

Holcroft, The Road to Ruin, Act I, scene 3.

Honour is but an itch in youthful blood
Of doing acts extravagantly good.

Howard, Indian Queen.

Great honours are great burdens, but on whom
They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
His cares must still be double to his joys,
In any dignity.

To set the cause above renown,
To love the game beyond the prize,
To honor while you strike him down,
The foe that comes with fearless eyes;
To count the life of battle good
And dear the land that gave you birth,
And dearer yet the brotherhood
That binds the brave of all the earth.